The motto for my camera bag, a swell little Think Tank number, is “Be ready ‘before the moment’” and I think it sums up a lot of what we do. In particular, sports photography, which we’ve been doing a lot of the last few weeks, demands knowing where the best moment is likely going to happen and putting yourself in the right place. For instance, at the state wrestling tournament, I was given this sheet of paper:
To decode this for you — the neatly written list of name in blue are the wrestlers I was assigned to photograph, in order of their weight classes and with their classifications (B/2A/3A/etc.) written out beside them so I could easily find the mats where they were wrestling. The red dots beside those names indicated the wrestlers I needed to be absolutely sure I got a publishable photo of. The short list in red below them was a list of Scott Spruill’s stories and which wrestlers / images would likely serve as the main images for the story and which would run secondary. The sloppy blue writing is then my notes to myself and the names of some of the coaches I photographed, scribbled hastily as I followed them off the mats after the matches.
Let me say, I love working with Scott. He is one of the most organized and helpful reporters I’ve worked with. When I walk into the event, his list has everything I need to hit the ground running. He knows the back story to most of the wrestlers and knows who we’ve run features on recently. He knows how my coverage will likely be used, which helps me plan how to shoot photos that will look good when they are run smaller or bigger, and also get a variety of shots, from action to reaction. Scott also knows which wrestlers are likely to win and how they’ve been wrestling so far in the season, so I can position myself to capture the jubilation shot at the end of the match. All of these factors play into how I approach covering matches that last about 6 minutes. And during several of the matches we covered, I needed to run between mats and make sure I had pictures of different local wrestlers who were wrestling at the same time — that means covering each wrestler for 3-4 minutes. It also means knowing where I need to get to and the shortest route to the next mat. Scott’s classification notes let me know where to get to, fast. Knowing which photos to prioritize, being able to anticipate what reactions were likely to happen at the end of which matches, and knowing where I had to be next all helped me work quickly and efficiently to make the six photos we needed for print and a gallery of online images.
While I can’t control which direction the wrestlers moved (to get shots of faces) or how the matches went (one wrestler was pinned and lost just as I was moving over to his mat to make pictures), being prepared meant that I got the best images I could out of each situation. I was able to focus fully on each situation, focus on the photography, rather than navigating the whirlwind of other factors that any big event brings. Although it has nothing to do with the f-stop, the lens, the composition or aesthetic, pre-planning is a vital and integral part of photography. It gets you in the right place at the right moment with the right gear and the right settings to make a good picture.
To see my photos from the match, click here.
Picture This | seattletimes.com blog
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